1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns telephone systems generally and more specifically, concerns the blocking of outgoing phone calls to phone numbers which have been placed on a do-not-call list.
2. Prior Art
In recent years the door to door salesman has been replaced by telephone solicitation. Rather than a salesman walking a route, a telemarketer makes a series of telephone calls. The telephone numbers dialed are normally on a call list given to the telemarketing salesman by his employer. The call list may be organized by address, consumer information or by the numbers themselves. Just as the consumer can slam the door in the face of a door to door salesman, the consumer may hang up upon receiving a telephone solicitation. However, the call itself is considered by many to be an intrusive act. The widespread nature of telephone solicitation means that certain segments of the public are desirous of being protected from even receiving such calls. Thus, a number of private organizations were created to inform direct marketers as to those who did not wish to receive such phone calls. Organizations produced do-not-call lists from those who do not wish to receive telemarketing solicitations and provided such lists to those direct marketeers who voluntarily comply with the consumer's request. Upon receipt of these lists, these marketeers would delete the listed numbers from their telemarketer's call lists. Such do not call lists work both to the benefit of the people who do not wish to receive calls and to the soliciting company which has its call list referred to a more select group of potential consumers that are more receptive of telephone sales pitches.
The Federal Government requires each telemarketer to maintain its own "do-not-call" lists and to add to the list the name of anyone so requesting exclusion from telephone calls from their company. Under the statute, fines can be assessed against companies that call numbers on the company's do-not-call list. The consumer is given the right to sue any company which calls them after they have requested that the company place them on the do-not-call list. In addition, a number of state governments, including those of Florida, Oregon, Arizona, Alaska, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia, maintain, or in the near future, will be maintaining, statewide do-not-call lists which are applicable to all vendors calling numbers in the state.
Thus, a telemarketer is faced with a legal responsibility under federal and state law to refrain from calling numbers maintained on separate lists including their own internal list and lists maintained by a number of state governments. On penalty of fine and civil action, the responsibility is laid on the telemarketer to ensure that no do-not-call numbers are, in fact, called. In addition, they may have one or more organizations do-not-call list with which the telemarketer wishes to comply. Accordingly, companies developed their final call lists for their telemarketer by comparing and matching their federally required do-not-call list, various state do-not-call lists and organizational do-not-call lists with their telemarketer's call lists and eliminating any matching numbers from their call list. This process has until now been done manually and is subject to human error. There is a large number of employees who must be committed to this effort. Even with this effort, the process does not eliminate the possibility of an employee innocently calling a number from an old call list or an employee simply disregarding the company's do-not-call list altogether in the search for commissions.
In addition, certain ambiguities develop in use. For example, a prior purchaser may have placed his name on a state mandated list. The hand process would eliminate that number although the customer may, in fact, wish to receive the call and by his former purchases, is a permitted callee under the state law.
Various attempts have been made to control out-going calls, usually to restrict long distance toll calls or to a single list of restricted numbers. A number of systems have been directed to stopping the making of long distance calls or specific area calls from a given location. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,612,419, to Smith, entitled Toll Restriction Circuit for Electronic Telephone Station, describes a means controlling toll calls only and is employed within the telephone station itself. It looks for a 0 and 1 in the first dialed digit, the subscriber can lock and unlock the device by a key pad entry with an enabling and disabling code. U.S. Pat. No. 4,358,640, to Murray, entitled Telephone Security Device, issued Nov. 9, 1982, describes a circuit which has means to allow or disallow toll calls on entry of a programmable code stored. U.S. Pat. No. 4,794,642, to Arbabzadah et al., Call Screening in a Public Telephone Station, issued Dec. 27, 1988, discloses control equipment in a customer owned public telephone station which prevents a user from making unauthorized telephone calls in a telephone system. The system restricts telephone numbers a user can dial to those numbers preselected by a station owner. U.S. Pat. No. 5,200,995, to Gaukel et al., issued Apr. 6, 1993, entitled Universal Outgoing Call Restriction Circuit, discloses a circuit which prevents a telephone or a plurality of telephones from making unauthorized or restricted calls to specific numbers or unspecific groups of numbers. Essentially the system compares the numbers against preprogrammed internal lists of restricted numbers.
None of these patents disclose a system necessary to handle the blocking requirements under federal and state law and lists prepared by various blocking organizations.